ceiling, and your own history on the debt ceiling. and doesn't that suggest that we are going to go into a default situation because no one is talking to each other about how to resolve this? >> well, no, major, i think if you look at the history, getting votes for the debt ceiling is always difficult, and budgets in this town are always difficult. i went through this just last year. but what's different is we never saw a situation as we saw last year in which certain groups in congress took such an absolutist position that we came within a few days of defaulting. and the fact of the matter is, is that we have never seen the debt ceiling used in this fashion, where the notion was, you know what, we might default unless we get 100 percent of what we want. that hasn't happened. now, as i indicated before, i'm happy to have a conversation about how we reduce our deficits further in a sensible way. although one thing i want to point out is that the american people are also concerned about how we grow our economy, how we put people back to